Traces the evolution of Athenian citizenship in the late seventh and early sixth centuries. The Kleisthenian reforms catalyzed Attica’s transformation to a powerful democratic state. The author begins by sketching Aristotelian concepts of the polis and democracy: justice is the essential condition of the state, and citizens are shareholders in a company whose purpose is moral excellence. Poetry, archaeology, and other remnants of Ancient Athens demonstrate these ideas, but citizenship lacked precise, shared understanding. Kylon’s attempted coup d’etat in 630 provoked aristocratic defense of privilege, as well as Drakon’s subsequent codification of customs such as penalties for killing Athenians (versus foreigners). But interstate warfare played a greater role than socioeconomic factors; scarcity of land was more important in undermining tribal affiliations. The reforms of Solon initiated more precise ideals of membership, inheritance, immigration; he also canceled debt, thus ending the possibility of citizens being sold into slavery, which won many different adherents. Further, several of Solon’s laws transformed formerly private concerns such as marriage, orphanage, weights and measures, and public festivals into public concerns. Yet his foremost concern was the process of justice: the well-ordered society is the just society. His controversial policies, particularly the cancellation of debt, led to tripartite factional warfare and the dictatorship of Peisistratos. The overall effect of his 25-year rule was positive for democratization (a la Pinochet or Kirkpatrick). Then followed 510’s diapsephisis, the judgment of fitness for citizenship on the basis of tribal descent. Kliesthenes’ rise to power dispelled this reign of terror; further, good order became equal order. He revised definitions of citizenship and enhanced participation in the legal system, and his reforms benefitted from foreign threats. Citizens were encouraged to work together domestically and in warfare. The inclusion of anthropology elongates the study, relegating some interesting material to the footnotes. In all, a useful historical work.
Book abstracts
15. Will, Bunts (8 Sep 2018)
A collection of baseball essays written over 1970-2000, reflecting on the sport’s seminal figures and movements, and how ‘America’s pastime’ reflects the country’s life. Games are a ‘space for ordered living’, according to Bart Giamatti, made not by nature but by free choices. Unlike football or basketball, baseball is played with a rhythm alternating between concentration and relaxation, as befits a 162-game season. Since teams will generally win and lose 40 percent of the time regardless, it’s the habit of the quotidian athletic performance that helps them achieve results in the balance – the thesis of
- Men at Work
. Donald Kagan denigrates the thesis as unheroic in a
- Public Interest
review republished herein; Will responds this is a Romantic fallacy, lionizing will without disciplined, sustained effort. (Elsewhere he comments that because sport compresses life’s trajectory, sports writers often display facile pathos.) As the author notes, the Greeks considered sport a moral undertaking: by witnessing grace, the soul learns to beauty, by seeing fair competition, the passions are educated. In ‘Good Character, Not Good Chemistry’, he sets forth the case against steroids (and other types of cheating). Winning is valued for praiseworthy attributes, while becoming better (self improvement) implies not only improvement but also the loneliness of the individual regimen. The purpose of umpiring is to regulate striving, not to eliminate violent effort but to regulate it, enabling excellence to prevail. Fans, for their part, are to derive enjoyment for the whole of the contest since pleasure cannot be predicated on outcomes (i.e., losing) that will so often be negative. Will often makes the case that the game has in fact improved. New York teams won 41 of 102 pennants from 1903-53, and 20 of 50 World Series, while there were no teams south of Washington DC or west of St. Louis, whereas since the fall of the reserve clause, very few teams have been repeat champions. As further evidence, he cites attendance: in strike-shortened 1995, 5 teams outdrew Cleveland’s record 2.6 million in 1948; average game attendance [probably tickets sold] in 1954 was 13,000. But the case mainly rests on the feats of the players, which are generally comparable – notwithstanding ‘live balls’, the introduction of the designated hitter, and steroids. There are sociopolitical essays on Jackie Robinson and Curt Flood, the former including the observation that Larry Doby may have been more important than Robinson because he was ‘merely’ talented (by comparison with the surreal Robinson). Will echoes the view that blacks are ‘underrepresented’ in baseball because of the game’s historic connotation with the color line – similar to rugby and apartheid – but does not observe that this helped opened the door to Latin Americans. On Pete Rose-Bart Giamatti, he writes that the important result was baseball’s institutions (i.e., the commissioner’s office) maintained its integrity rather than succumbing to supervision of federal judiciary. Less predictably, he is generally hard on owners during the labor turmoil of the 1990s. John Miller, then broadcasting for the Orioles and Washington DC layer Earl Bennett Williams, is lauded for attention to details: his ‘respect for listeners’ includes fastidious scorekeeping and absence of hyperbole. By contrast, Billy Martin (and Rose) is excoriated for violating baseball’s equipoise – he couldn’t sustain a winning culture. Some nuggets: the introduction of better fielding equipment in the 1880s change the game from a contest between fielder versus hitter to pitcher versus hitter, as prior to, 1 in 2 runs was unearned; players left gloves on the field through the 1940s; the Penn Law Review found the infield fly rule would be superfluous if baseball were to emulate cricket’s sporting ethic – but in America the purpose is to win; a winning team scores more runs in 1 inning than the loser does in 9; the end of the American League umpire’s chest protector lowered the strike zone, but the AL zone remained smaller than the National League’s. In all, the columns hold up well some 30 years later, and Will’s Aristotelian thesis (‘we are what we repeatedly do’) looks no worse for the wear either.
17. Davis, Crucible of Command (15 Oct 2018)
A dual biography of Robert E. Lee and Ulysses Grant which serves to portray the primary military campaigns of the Civil War. Lee, 15 years older, sought to prevail by making Northern opinion give up, albeit through winning a Napoleonic, climactic battle; Grant, the most offensive-minded of Northern commanders, was tasked to win in the Confederacy’s spiritual homeland. Defeating Lee helped Grant become ‘second to Lincoln’ as man of the century. Both were Whiggish West Pointers, Lee the scion of a Revolutionary War hero who was forced to become head of the household, and was made by the Mexican War. Grant was hard-working but left the army to become an indifferent businessman. Although Lee was a prized recruit to the Confederacy, because of rivalries and state sovereignty, he didn’t become primes inter pares until May 1863 – months before his failure at Gettysburg. Grant worked his way up through Mississippi Valley wins at Fort Donelson, Shiloh, and Vicksburg, shrugging off a reputation for drunkenness and officer rivalries. Both Lee and Grant preferred surprise, indirect moves, and forceful follow-ups. In summer 1863, as he was charged to clear western Tennessee of Southern cavalry, he grasped the broader potential for destroying Southern resource base in Alabama and Georgia. His planning along with his successes made it inevitable he would be brought east to face Lee (which happened in April 1864). Also that summer, Grant came to appreciate the need to abolish slavery, though he was generally minded to avoid politics and in fact left the niceties to George Meade. When asked by politicians in March 1865 to recommend surrender, Lee declined; a month later he conceded to Grant’s generous terms at Appomattox. Swept to the presidency in 1868, he suppressed the KKK and was the first two-term president to display a modern approach. Lee, elected president of a struggling Virginian college, helped a Republican become governor of the state, thus enabling the Old Dominion to regain admission to the union in 1870 and side with Reconstruction (the only Southern state to do so). Lee, a fatalist, believed God’s intentions practically eliminated risk since events were preordained. Grant, the late bloomer, was prepared to take the good with the bad, to live life all over again.
22. Sampson, Mandela (5 Dec 2020)
An authorized biography, bolstered by the author’s contemporaneous journalism, seeking to assess the political temperament and performance of Nelson Mandela. Prepossessing the demeanor of a tribal chieftain and educated by Wesleyans, Mandela’s prison years instilled discipline and broadened vision, the crucial step toward peaceful revolution and African statesmanship par excellence. Taking to Johannesburg in the 1950s, where he practiced law and politics making expert (if ‘vicious’) use of the Socratic method, Mandela discovered a cultural energy comparable to the Harlem renaissance of the 1920s. He was impulsive and of two minds, torn between multiracial communism and black nationalism. Mandela opposed the socialistic element of 1956’s Freedom Charter, but contemporaries thought that if he wasn’t a member of the South African Communist Party, it was ‘merely tactical’. Less enamored of nonviolence than Oliver Tambo or Walter Sisulu, he abandoned the approach after the Sharpeville riots failed to catalyze political change. Following his capture and trial, Robben Island isolated Mandela from daily tactics: the African National Congress inmates turned to collegial development of strategy while learning to master animosity toward the Afrikaners. Meanwhile, the author tends to jump ahead consistent with contemporary left-liberal views, blaming the CIA and Thatcher for opposing sanctions, being slow to reconcile to the ‘inevitable’ ascendancy of Mandela and the ANC (soon coming to power in 1987?!), and failing to anticipate the end of the Cold War (in 1978!). Sampson notably overlooks that the Cold War’s end made it safer for the Nationalist government to retrench. But the dynamics of Mandela’s negotiations with Botha and deKlerk read more reliably, particularly in the portrayal of his views on renouncing violence, as do his thoughts on opposing general amnesty in exchange for commencing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Mandela misapprehended the cost of the ANC’s historic alliance with the USSR, and was slow to grasp the prospect of nationalization as deterring Western investors. In office, modeling is mixed (i.e., antagonistic) cabinet on Clemenceau’s, he displayed a quiet dignity, his forgiveness establishing moral supremacy, in contrast (the author says) to aggressive black American politicians. A persistent themes is the tension between the demands on a politician (i.e., winning power, projecting ideology) and the vision of a statesman (long-term good of the community). The last word: ‘You don’t lead by position but by the strength of your ideas’ (p. 529).
18. Morgan, Genuine Article (23 Oct 2018)
A collection of book reviews treating Colonial and Revolutionary era topics, often revealing the author’s views of 1980s-90s historiographic fashion. Following Perry Miller, Morgan asserts the value of taking people (i.e., evidence) at their word; socioeconomic approaches are disparaged in that ‘hidden meanings’ can’t be interrogated and so tend to reveal what the historian is looking for’; reliance on statistics for obscuring the big picture, a la Lewis Namier’s structure of politics. Whereas the main value of written evidence is the ability to show changes in how people thought about themselves. As to the 18th century, Morgan sides with the thesis that the America’s was a revolution was not made but preserved. He writes the position of the revolutionaries was to trust men in power no more than necessary: the crowd (‘the mob’) held the same mistrust of Parliament and colonial governors, who were gaining in power as the century went on – notwithstanding the efforts of neo-Marxist historians to find an independent, class agenda. In separate essays, written at different times, he appears of two minds regarding the political position of the Antifederalists and also the legitimacy of popular sovereignty. John Winthrop is convincingly portrayed as pragmatic, the ‘first great American’, for leading the quasi-surreptitious transformation of the English joint stock company into a colonial charter for Puritans. The Puritans’ devolution of sexual morality to civic government is the first sexual revolution. Franklin is like Burke albeit quicker to recognize to the breach with England was irreparable; Hutchinson a man of Burkean principle who nonetheless ended a simple apologist for power. (In an aside, Morgan shows how absolute right was converted to parliamentary sovereignty: from the king can do no wrong to the king wants what is right; what we want is right; the king must want what we want.) The essay on Gordon Wood’s Radicalism of the American Revolution is strong. Those on Southern culture are learned but less gripping, perhaps because of the topics; as Morgan notes, the South became self-conscious of its culture only after it lay in the ruins of the Civil War. The co-authored essay on a successor to the Dictionary of American Biography is poor. Generally crisp and learned, yet Morgan often accommodates contemporary, fashionable liberalism.
19. Howard, Lessons of History (1 Nov 2018)
The French Revolution spurred the rise of nationalism in 19th-century Europe, a phenomenon which proved the major impetus for statecraft and warfare over the succeeding two centuries. More than simply self-conscious culture, nationalism in the 1800s was ideological, entwining a loose worldview with a defined sense of universal (often cultural) mission. It complemented economic modernization while overshadowing Marxism, which in its early phase had no conception of statecraft. Nationalism complicated life for Eastern Europe’s Jews, but (in its imperial guise) looked in colonial lands like routine military conquest. For social Darwinians cum nationalists, war was the ultimate test of folk strength – a view which died out after the carnage of World War I. In the 19th century, the Prussian mindset conflicted with German nationalism; Treitschke’s view that the essence of the state was power (macht), which required an army, bridged the two; ultimately, Nazism replaced Preussentum. Little is said of the interwar era. Howard coopts Churchill to makes a case for postwar British nationalism – as way to consensually accommodate postwar British decline – while giving the Russians a pass because the victorious Soviet army was ‘popular’ in postwar Eastern Europe! They and the Americans were the century’s inheritors of the universal mission, and in the current (when published) century, nationalism rather than social justice or economic equality remained the driver of public spirit. It provides the state apparatus with legitimacy: if unmoored (for example by supranational elites), the structure becomes alienating and oppressive. Turning to warfare, in which the author specializes, Howard’s primary insights are that 1) pre-WWI army doctrines failed to grasp the impact of mechanization despite the evidence of late-19th-century warfare – maneuver was ignored, and 2) in the greatest military literature, the hero cannot win, as abundantly demonstrated in WWI. As to history, the field is meant to train laymen – not professionals – to understand precedents of the contemporary. Howard asserts all ages of are equal interest to the historian, although the book fairly omits the developing world, and is comfortable with historicism though not polemical. In a ranging essay on ‘structure and progress’, he surveys why history has been held valuable and himself settles on its role in tracing society’s movement from the realm of necessity to the realm of choice. Such progress looks a leftward ratchet. The volume is not representative of his professional achievement and perhaps understates his contribution to understanding the relationship of warfare, society, and politics; however, it evinces the postwar bien pensant, the elite who could not see through the Soviets and uphold the enduring value of the liberal society.
20. Dunn, Breaking Democracy’s Spell (4 Nov 2018)
Democracy has successfully established itself worldwide, but its record is poor. The author contends democracy is a formula for ‘direction of legitimate coercion’ over territory and population, for the citizen’s subjection to power without sacrificing dignity. Its good name owes to success of Western governments, particularly the USA, and its strengths are in the capacity to harness sociopolitical struggle; monarchy and aristocracy cannot allow for the possibility of conflict. However, democracy as commonly understood ‘equivocates’ between authoritative standard of right conduct and describing the political character of the regime. In an extended treatment of authoritarian China’s coming to terms with democracy, he shows that Chinese hierarchy includes an obligation to instruct the population. But his alternate example of good government rests on the country’s post-1980 economic growth (the real cost of which is not yet known to the West), and ignores that hierarchy has no tides to the commonweal. (Separately, he adds the true exemplar of democracy is India because of its size.) Dunn does not like democracy’s lack of alignment to egalitarian and leftist outcomes, which he dresses up as ‘reliable’ ties to justice and utility. He equates self-government with egalitarian outcomes, instead of opportunity. Ultimately, he seems to dislike Western (especially American) democracy because Americans don’t listen to their betters. He laments the failure of progressives to make the case for the folly of the Iraq invasion or the necessity of climate-change legislation, and proposes the university can steer the world out of its problems. He shows no concept of Thucydidean (or Lincolnian) persuasion (i.e., to know what to do and to be able to explain it), of knowing and representing the group. Dunn appears most concerned power that elites don’t hold power; it’s revealing that his critique lacks Fukuyama’s treatment of accountability and order (i.e., rule of law). The polemic scores a few points but abstruse language muddies the argument, which at any rate fails to really address the important questions of who should rule in the 21st century.
21. Kennedy, Rise and Fall of Great Powers (13 Dec 2018)
The rise and fall of leading nation-states is determined by the interplay of economics, technology, and military prowess. Expanding nations more easily support ever-rising costs of warfare; declining countries have to make fateful strategic choices. In the author’s multipolar framework, changes in trade patterns presage the outcomes of strategic conflicts, and so foreshadow the next political order. Individual leadership is less important because imperatives and choices are made in the context of Bismarck’s ‘stream of time’: strengths are relative. The outcome of warfare over 1450-1950 confirmed long-term economic shifts, often borne of new technology. Revised territorial order reflected redistribution, but peace did not freeze socioeconomic conditions.
Global powers tend to overspend on defense and underinvest in growth. Japan became a financial power (i.e., leading creditor nation) following its industrial rise: evidence – or the author – suggests the Asian country is most likely to supplant the ‘overstretched’ USA. The challenge to American longevity lies in defense commitments to overseas position obtained when it had a higher share of global GDP, a better balance of payments, and less debt. The most serious threat hegemons face is failure to adjust to change.
In the 15th century, European states trailed the Asian dynasties. War shaped its rising powers; distributed economic growth made it impossible to suppress all of them; the key economic development was the long-range ship. Within Europe itself, states were always spending to overpower another. Spain lacked manpower, grew slowly (aside from New World bullion), and suffered precarious finances. It was overstretched. French aspirations were checked by the balance of power, most importantly by result of the War of Spanish Succession, and backward finance. Following the Diplomatic Revolution of 1753, which crystallized England’s balance of power strategy, British mercantile prowess and ability to borrow fueled its win in the Seven Years War (one of seven with France over 1689-1815), and thus hegemony to 1945.
In the Victorian era, Britain’s industrial might was less oriented to the military than any era since the Stuarts. Further, it had no appetite for Continental interventions. Its power owed to its navy and colonies – productive investments – as well as the City of London. Despite the rise of late 19th-century US and Germany industry as well as Prussian military reform, the UK’s position circa 1914 was not so weak as often portrayed. Alliance diplomacy encouraged the drift to World War I, and prevented a quick resolution. The series of UK diplomatic concessions to the US (e.g., fisheries, the Panama Canal, Alaska) overturned conventional expectations of ‘natural’ Anglo-American hostility, and so won the UK a vital ally.
Kennedy observes the Versailles and peacetime politics were reshaped by ideology (Wilson and Lenin), one of the few nods to political ideas. The League didn’t deter aggressors but confused the democracies. Now comprising 27 countries, European consensus on colonies collapsed. Russia is seen as reactive instead of acquisitive in search of a ‘near abroad’ buffer. In the postwar era, the US rise was fueled by commanding share of world GDP, substantial tech innovation, a military proven in Europe and Asia, plus the atomic bomb. But Russia quickly erased the nuclear gap and America’s relative lead shrank after the 1960s: Vietnam, Iran, etc. indicate overstretch. The author applauds Kissinger for recognizing limits of American foreign policy; Nixon’s China overture changed the correlation of forces. Deng wisely recognized peace is necessary for the ‘four modernizations’: agriculture, industry, science, military. Kennedy sees less hope for Soviet Russia but suggests it will be hard to displace its Communist political system. Japanese central planning plus its lack of military commitments makes it the natural successor to the USA.
More like deterministic political science than long-view history, Kennedy’s work overlooks that power is a wasting asset, itself to be used as if an investment; that ideas have consequences, as fuel for socioeconomic events; and relative status is not a straight line – opportunities can be missed. Of course, he failed to anticipate two decades of Japanese stagnation due to real estate collapse, the fall of Soviet
4. Peter Drucker, Daily Drucker (27 December 2021)
Decomposes the management theorist’s postwar oeuvre, exposing key tenets of his ‘social ecology’. Much influenced by Bagehot, Drucker’s views reflect his time in Weimar Germany as well as his interests in the contemporaneous emergence of management and the knowledge economy. Notable principles:
• The strongest argument for business as a social organization is the function of loss: efficient abandonment
• There are three models of the corporation: the German, which emphasizes the social market; the Japanese, which favors the social; and the American, which prioritizes the economic
• Management creates development, not capital or labor. The proper direction of human energies generates progress and wealth (p. 56), whereas central planning cannot master information and its productive use
• Management is a practice, drawing from other disciplines as well as its own precepts. It must emphasize the whole – focusing on the parts obscures the objective of serving customers
• The question ‘what is our business?’ can be answered only by outsiders, for the purpose lies in society, and its mission is to create customers
• A theory of a business entails assumptions about its environment (society, marketing, custom, technology); its mission (what are the expected results); and its core competencies. A business audit comprises mission and strategy, the relevant market, innovation, productivity, people development, and profitability
• The innovator makes most of the profit, and profit is short lived. Nonetheless, he has best seen the future, which has already happened
• Schumpeter always asks: is there sufficient profit to re-invest? That is, to pay for the cost of creative destruction
• Leadership lifts men to higher ends. Day-to-day management should therefore emphasize strict conduct and responsibility, performance standards, respect for an individual’s work. Leadership multiplies strengths. Its requirements are listening, communicating, not making excuses, and subordinating itself to (its share of) the task (i.e., management by objective)
• Authority and responsibility should be congruent
• The first task in assessing knowledge work is to define quality
• The most effective route to self-renewal is to pursue unexpected success
• Focus on strengths, improve strengths, reduce disabling habits
• Decisions: start with what’s right, not what’s acceptable. There are two compromises, when half is better and when the compromise does not reach the boundary condition. Then build action into the decision: who has to know? who’s to act? what are the objectives of action?
• Managers set objectives, organize, motivate and communicate, measure, and develop people. Manage to objectives, using control, that is the discipline of reaching excellence
• The organizational unit must be single-minded or its members become confused
• To measure knowledge-work productivity, measure EVA (economic value added): value added / expenses. Capital investment should be assessed by ROI, payback, cashflow, and discounted present value
23. Buchholz, New Ideas from Dead Economists (25 December 2021)
A laymen’s portraiture of the giants of classical economy, coming to dwell on Keynes’ 20th-century predominance. Since Smith, the field has sought for a Newtonian (i.e., physical or cause-and-effect) set of laws governing socioeconomic activity but instead settled on a more Darwinian (biological or dialectical) approach, premised on any number of phenomena.
• Ricardo: specialization is determined by whomever has the lowest opportunity cost. Therefore, prudential reshoring is simply a revaluation of cost – it cannot be left to agency bust must be principally viewed (but see also ‘transfer earnings’)
• Mill: positive economics describes (predicts) the world as it works, as it should normatively govern a set of morals or ethics. When otherwise, there is need for reform. Following Burke, he sought for equality of opportunity; equally so, it is government’s obligation to demonstrate the likelihood of an intervention’s improving matters.
• Marx: economic changes are cause-and-effect, social changes (in the so-called superstructure) are ideological and potentially revolutionary. The Marxist focus on labor value shortchanges capital including ideas (entrepreneurship) and delayed gratification, which are not free goods
• Marshall: marginalism asserts the past is over, what counts is what’s nest. Microeconomics hold actors take new steps only if benefits outweigh the costs: man is not a constant. Look at one factor at a time, impound the rest
• ‘Old’ institutionalists hold that large (private) firms belied marginalism. ‘New’ institutionalists use Marshall’s neoclassical tools to study how firms influence society. For example, does efficiency equate to justice? The latter also identified the principal agency problem
• Keynes: when consumers boost savings and investment, so will merchants, thus decelerating the economy in times of crisis. Say’s Law (production creates demand) is false. He was, however, a capitalist: not robber barons but national actors cause slumps. Keynes’ multiplier theory (government pump priming) is contemporary economic evidence of progressive belief in expertise.
• Monetarism holds velocity is more stable than in Keynes’ view, so money supply is government’s foremost tool. Government spending does not influence price unless money also changes. In the 1980s and afterward, saving reduced velocity, as did inflation’s fall. Friedman (not Hayek, who gets little attention) is emblematic
• Public choice: government too is self-interested. Keynes seemed to be aware progressivism undermines popular sovereignty but offered no answer to the principal-agency problem. Instead he felt the bureaucrats meant well.
• Feldstein, Boskin, Krugman, Summers et al focus on aggregate supply, coalescing around government and productivity, toward improved living standards, which requires investment, which entails tuning the tax regime
• Deduction seeks conclusion in incontrovertible laws; induction in recognizing more limited patterns and unprovable hypotheses that lead to predictive models. Put another way, the more or the more importance that can be attributed to law, the more deduction pertains; the less, the more induction holds. Relatedly, Friedman observed the test of a model is its predictive value not its ex ante accuracy
The author touches on ‘rational expectations’, a somewhat nihilist approach, and behavioralism; the book is too early for modern monetary theory. Using a droll style, large free of technical terms (and no charts), the author often projects a protagonist’s conclusions forward to the 1980s and 90s.